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" I think sometimes you go through an experience, and you don't feel the impact, especially in a war experience, until way past it. "
Tom King
Impact
Experience
Past
Related Quotes:
" It's funny, you know: my mother-in-law, who doesn't have an ounce of nerd in her, is just so excited by the fact that I write 'Batman' because she'll see an article about me in the 'Washington Post' or 'The Wall Street Journal' or something. And that means so much to me. "
Tom King
You
She
Me
" I wanted to be a writer, and my mother was like, 'No, why don't you become a lawyer?' That sort of thing. "
Tom King
Lawyer
Mother
Become
" I grew up your classic nerd who was not good at throwing balls or kicking them. I was good at reading stories by myself. That was my specialty as a child. "
Tom King
Myself
Good
Classic
" Not to get political, but it seems like every day I read the paper, and you're reading about nuclear war and Russians taking over the country and Nazis again. It's like every once in a while, the world blinks for a second, and it goes, 'Darkseid is!' The world has changed, and it's changed in a 'Darkseid is' way. "
Tom King
War
Day
Political
" The idea of doing a buffer, sexier Riddler - I like that. I think he's a reflection of Batman, and I think of him like a scary, evil Batman. Like Bruce Wayne without a conscience. "
Tom King
Doing
Reflection
Scary
" I served my country; I did that. I was in the C.I.A., and I served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I love this country with every part of my body, and I was willing to risk my body and my family for it. But I wake up in a country I don't understand anymore. "
Tom King
Wake Up
Love
Family
" I still feel it's kind of weird to say, 'I'm a comic book writer.' "
Tom King
Weird
Book
Writer
" Batman gets close to the insanity of Gotham, to the craziness, to what drives that city mad, and not be driven mad himself - or, at least, most of the time he isn't. That's most like the mission of the C.I.A. We get into the heads of our enemies without becoming our enemy. "
Tom King
Mission
Insanity
Enemy
" I've been the desperate writer before. I wrote a novel, and they paid me for it, and I've had those calls from my agent, and I'm like, 'Do you need me to ghost-write a vampire novel? What do you need? I'll do Transformers... tell me!' "
Tom King
Me
Like
Need
" My novel got published, and I became a paid writer, which was nice, and then it came out, and nobody bought it, so I became an unemployed writer again. "
Tom King
Nice
Writer
Out
" I started out as a novelist, and I think novels have gotten a little stiff, a little repetitive, and the energy in comics was much more appealing. "
Tom King
Started
Think
Energy
" You can't tell a Batman story without the Joker, and you can't tell a Joker story without Batman. They're just the symbols of the best and worst of humanity. "
Tom King
You
Worst
Story
" It's good to be a cynic. I'm a cynic. But the best part of being a cynic is somebody proving you wrong. "
Tom King
Proving
You
Wrong
" My scripts, they're pretty serious. I basically just describe stuff. I don't put too many notes and letters to the editors. But when I wrote 'KGBLT,' in parentheses I wrote, 'Well this is the best thing I've ever written. It will all be downhill from here. I'm so sorry for the rest of my career.' "
Tom King
Career
Rest
Sorry
" I love continuity. I was a continuity nerd growing up. I loved buying a comic in the middle of something and loved digging for back issues or going forward and trying to figure it all out. "
Tom King
Loved
Trying
Growing Up
" I'm a firm believer in putting your experiences in your writing, of bleeding into the page. "
Tom King
Experiences
Writing
Firm
" I wanted to write about the Trump era, but I didn't want to write, 'Fascism sucks' or 'Trump sucks.' That doesn't get you anywhere. "
Tom King
Write
You
Want
" Honestly, I grew up a huge Peanuts fan. "
Tom King
Honestly
Grew
Fan
" When I was 12, I used to ride my scooter two miles to a comics shop, which I can't imagine letting my kids do by themselves through the city. "
Tom King
Through
Miles
Imagine
" It's hard to find a unique look for a Batman villain. Everything like a scar on the face, or a skin condition, there are so many unique signifiers taken. "
Tom King
Look
Face
Unique
" That's all the Joker is. It's Batman without love. The Riddler is the opposite of that. It's the detective in him. "
Tom King
Joker
Him
Detective
" When I write, I see the pages in my head, not the words. "
Tom King
Write
Words
See
" I wanted to look like the most diverse writer in comics! Spy genre, space genre, crime genre, and then you realize that it's all actually the same thing. "
Tom King
Look
Space
You
" That's my whole point as an artist - I'm trying to get you to turn a page. "
Tom King
Trying
Turn
Point
" Writing is weaponized empathy. It's putting yourself in someone else's head. It's finding what's in them that relates to you. "
Tom King
Finding
Empathy
Writing
" I don't believe in writing for goals, or else I'd write essays. "
Tom King
Essays
Believe
Writing
" Batman's not mine. He doesn't necessarily belong to me. As a character, he belongs first to the audience and second to the hundreds of writers who have been writing him in comics for 75 years. "
Tom King
Me
Him
Character
" What eventually you find in comics is the only thing unique you can bring to a character who's been around for 80 years is yourself. "
Tom King
Find
You
Yourself
" My first book is called 'Carry the Three.' It's definitely in a drawer, and it's terrible. I never sent it to anybody. My wife read it, but nobody else. "
Tom King
Three
Wife
Book
" You throw sadness, you throw depression, you throw horror at Batman, he's like, 'Yeah, yawn, I've done that.' You throw happiness at him? That's something that riles him; that's something that he's not used to. "
Tom King
Sadness
Him
Happiness